Notre Dame Ready for Road Trip No. 2
It’s been an interesting 18 hours around the world of college football, so if you forgot, Notre Dame will travel to Georgia Tech this weekend and head coach Brian Kelly hopes it goes as smooth as last weekend’s trip to Pittsburgh.
"Protocols, procedures went very well,” Kelly said on Thursday. “We had no positives from our Sunday and our Tuesday tests. We tested again today. That's a great sign. You're on the road for the first time. You're in contact with people outside your bubble, so our guys did a great job. I think our support staff was outstanding and our players were very flexible in dealing with the circumstances.”
The trip was anything, but normal for Notre Dame as they weren’t allowed to eat on the plane and ate twice at Heinz Field. Notre Dame also flew in Friday evening and left after a team meal following the game. In and out. No sightseeing or Heinz Field tour and that will be very similar to this weekend’s trip.
"We'll continue to do something very similar,” said Kelly. “It's a little bit different in that the hotel can accommodate the social distancing that we needed for our meals. We'll eat at the hotel, which is different. We ate at Heinz Field last week."
Road trips aren’t anything new to quarterback Ian Book and while there might not have been as much downtime as usual, the graduate student and his teammates recognized it’s not a normal year.
“I like getting there and seeing places I’ve never been to before,” Book explained. “I always enjoy that. I actually enjoy away games a lot. You enjoying being with the guys, traveling and seeing a place I’ve never seen.
“I understand completely with COVID what we gotta do. It didn’t change anything and didn’t ruin anything. We were able to get there and got the opportunity to play at Heinz Field. That was unbelievable. It worked and we have to do what we have to do.”
It’s been clear this week that winning games are no longer just the standard for this team, but the Irish also aren’t worried about trying to match Clemson’s performance against Georgia Tech.
If you forgot, Clemson went to Bobby Dodd Stadium and left with a 73-7 victory two weeks ago. The Tigers finished with 671 total yards, including Trevor Lawrence throwing for 404 yards and five touchdowns.
“We set that standard last week in terms of what was expected of our team,” said Kelly. “We're not going to get into comparing scores. That really isn't what this is about. This is about a standard of play that we didn't think we were matching. If we wanted to be a championship team, we had to elevate with a sense of urgency and we did that last week and we're going to have to do that consistently. That means we're going to have to do that again this week.
"It's really not about what that looks like from any other perspective other than our own and that is how we play the game. It would be more appropriate to show them the difference between the Louisville and Pittsburgh game and that's what we've talked about."